Alchemical Musings

The Israeli elections are over, and it looks like Netanyahu’s “reelection campaign” wasn’t as successful as the last one he staged 4 years ago. A few months ago, in November ’12, I had just returned from visiting Palestine/Israel when the IDF launched an attack against Gaza. Although Palestinian rockets raining down on Israel are nothing new, the new extended range of the Qassam rockets allowed the Gazans to attack new targets. I listened in disbelief as I learned that a few of the missiles hit Jerusalem suburbs. As far as I am aware, the last time Jerusalem was bombed from the air was in 1967, by the Jordanians. And, I’m pretty certain the Old City was off limits. I mean, can you imagine the reactions if one of those Qassams scratched the holy dome of the rock?  Or, Jesus’ tomb, which is down the block?

The only way I have been able to understand these attacks is like an act of self-cutting—driven by utter desperation, isolation, and hopelessness.

From what I could tell, our Gazan (Brethren|Terrorists|Freedom Fighters) were basically lobbing missiles north, without the ability to aim. Humanity has been targeting projectiles for thousands of years, without the assistant of computers. Heck, the study of mechanics and the discovery of the parabolic equation was largely driven by military applications. For example, if you could calculate the rocket’s fuel, the wind speed, and the launch angle, you might be able to more accurately target a rocket. Or, even simpler—have some friends on the ground near the impact site tweet the lat/long coordinates of impact, and then adjust your next shot accordingly. But, we’re living in the 21st century, and the CTOs in silicon valley are playing with toy rockets controlled by open source missile guidance systems, like Altus Metrum. The weaponization of open source is democratizing access to the world’s most advanced killing platforms.

The Gazan militants are likely aware of these techniques, but if they aren’t, a lack of education is surely to blame. Education is a casualty of the occupation, alongside connectivity, mobility, access to water, fuel, electricity, etc. The Gazan militants are labeled terrorists since they kill civilian targets. But, if they can’t aim, they are hardly targeting civilians. The nuttiest part of this equation, is that if you tried to help them learn how to target their weapons, so they could aim at military targets instead of civilian ones, you would be accused of aiding and abetting terrorism. So, you can’t teach them how to not hit civilians.  You can’t help them overcome terrorism.

Filed by Jonah at 9:18 pm under ethics,fire
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